In recent years, folks in the entertainment biz have begun to invest their time and energy into reboots and remakes and even bizarre spinoffs of successful past ventures. While this has been more commonplace with franchises on the big screen, film reboots have officially moved to the small. The latest television series to be adapted from a film will be NBC’s forthcoming In The Line Of Fire.
Still in the early stages of development, In The Line Of Fire will follow the story of a Secret Service agent who gets the chance to redeem himself after a fall from grace to protect the president from a CIA hitman who has gone rogue. Deadline reports that the agent will be joined by a female partner – with whom sparks will undoubtedly fly – in his attempts to save lives.
In The Line Of Fire will be based upon the 1993 film by the same name, and the series looks to be staying pretty close to the original plot. The movie starred Clint Eastwood as the hero, Rene Russo as his teammate/love interest, and John Malcovich as the assassin. A huge success of an action thriller, In The Line Of Fire was a natural choice for adaptation to the small screen.
Of course, there are some inevitable complications in turning the plot of a two-hour movie into a television series. Clint Eastwood and Rene Russo could chase John Malcovich nearly nonstop without requiring too much suspension of disbelief, but a show with weekly installments will require a whole different kind of climax. Even if the adaptation has a limited run of less than the typical 20+ episodes per season of network television, it would take some pretty drawn-out chase sequences to stretch the movie material out long enough to last even a first season of a series.
As such, NBC’s In The Line Of Fire will attempt to preempt this problem by allowing the as-yet-unnamed agents to investigate weekly cases as well as dealing with the ongoing mythology of the hitman hunting the president. Writers Carol Mendelsohn and Josh Berman team up after past collaborations on CSI to craft the series.
As it happens, both writers already have some big projects in the works other than In The Line Of Fire. Mendelsohn is working to remake the '80s hit Hart To Hart for NBC with a gay couple in place of the original jetsetting socialites, and Berman is executive producing a modern take on Mark Twain with Sawyer & Huck for CBS. Hopefully, the promising In The Line Of Fire will not be lost in the shuffle of new series.
If only it could star Clint Eastwood.
